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Labour ’s Heidi Alexander said: “It feels ubiquitous wherever you go to purchase any type of product you are surrounded with offers on confectionery, sweet goods, and for people to say that we’re moving in the right direction doesn’t feel that way at all.”

Ms Blackwood replied: “The point that you raise really highlights the scale of the challenge that we face and that’s one of the reasons we are focusing in on the producer-led measures of the soft drinks industry levy and the reformulation programme.

“Those are two areas where we can manage the impact very effectively and we know that we will be able to effectively reduce the intake of soft drinks and sugar which is among the highest intake of anywhere in Europe for our children in the UK.

Ministers hope the food industry will cut 20% of sugar from the products children enjoy (Image: Getty)

“And we can also reduce the intake of sugar from key foods for our children.

“This is an area where we know we can have an impact as well as sports in schools.

“That is a place to start, but we have developed in the UK an addiction to sugar. When we start looking at the ubiquitous areas, that’s more challenging so that’s the next step.

“So when I look at this as a minister, there is no way I am going to achieve this as a Government top-down strategy imposing it on everyone.

“The only way we are going to achieve this is by partnership working between government and industry and schools working together to try and deliver this and it is genuinely a generational change that we’re after.

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But another witness told the powerful group of MPs that the voluntary scheme will fail.

Ministers hope the food industry will cut 20% of sugar from the products children enjoy including cereals, yoghurts, biscuits, cakes, confectionery, puddings, ice cream and sweet spreads over the next five years, with a 5% cut in the first year.

But Paul Dobson, professor of business strategy and public policy at the University of East Anglia, told the committee: “(These measures) will fail because they are not targeted.